Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Politics is the art of the possible.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.